One Beltane Day
by Nanenna
Summary: It's Beltane, also known as May Day. Sans and Papyrus are getting ready to go celebrate with the rest of the village when Sans is distracted by something... no, someone. Someone dangerous. Someone forbidden. Someone from the forest.


Inspired by Hunter's Kiss, a Labyrinth fanfic. The poem Sans starts to recite is Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti, which I'm only familiar with because of a different Labyrinth fic. I guess my fandom roots are showing. XB

This fic does contain references to Christianity, let it be known that the priest's views are not my own. Nor are they meant to be villainizing of those who do choose to worship Christ. Simply put: that was a common view a long time ago and is simply included as a set piece.

* * *

A pair of men were driving along a dirt road, the lush trees of the forest nearly blocking out the fading rays of the setting sun. The driver flicked the reins and clucked encouragingly to the horse pulling their little buggy, the horse obediently sped up. The passenger simply looked around him calmly.

"We'll be through the forest soon, just a little farther," the driver commented.

"I don't mind a little night driving, I find this road rather pleasant."

"During the day, sure. I don't want to be anywhere near the forest when night falls."

"Of course." The passenger smiled to himself and let the driver have his way. "Thank you again for giving me a ride home."

"I wouldn't let you try to walk such a long way, Father John."

"As you told me. Quite firmly, I might add." The priest chuckled, then the pair lapsed into silence again. Father John stiffened, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Father John clutched the driver's arm, "Slow down."

The driver grimaced, but pulled the horse into a steady trot. Over the rhythmic clopping of the horse's hooves he heard the distant sound of wailing. He quickly switched the reins into a one handed hold so he could make the sign of the cross over himself. "A banshee, we should keep going."

"No, it's a child!"

"No," the driver insisted firmly, "it's a trap! Do you want to get spirited away by some mischievous fae?"

"I am a man of God, I have nothing to fear from them. If you're so worried stay here with the horse, but for God's sake stop and let me go help that poor child!"

The driver grimaced all the harder, but he pulled the horse to a stop. Once the buggy had slowed, the priest hopped out and hurried into the undergrowth. The driver watched him go, then spent a full minute calling himself first a coward then a fool before leaving the buggy to chase after the priest. He quickly caught up, together the pair wandered further into the woods, following the high, reedy sound of a child's wail. They soon realized it was not one, but two children. The driver noted with relief that the sound remained steady, not changing direction or getting further and further into the woods.

They finally stumbled onto the source of the wailing, which cut off as they noisily approached. There was a layer of something shimmering over the ground, practically pointing at a tall thorn bush. While Father John squatted in front of the bush to look within, the driver bent over to look more closely at the shimmery substance. It looked like some kind of fine powder. Father John gasped and sat back, a look of surprise plastered over his face. The driver squatted down in front of the bush himself to have a look.

Two small skeletons with tear streaked skulls were huddled together in a hollow under the bush, clinging to each other and looking up at them with fearful eyes.

The driver sat back up as well and looked at Father John with wide eyes and mouth agape. "We need to leave."

"I'm not leaving a pair of little children out here all alone!"

"We can't bring them with us, they're fae! Monsters! Forest Folk!"

"No matter what kind of people they are, they're just children! I'll not leave them to be gobbled up by wild animals." Father John got back down on his hands and knees and tried to give the frightened children his kindest smile.

"It's not wild animals we fear in these woods," the driver grumbled. "If we leave them here their parents or some other faerie will hear them and come take care of them."

"Hello little ones," Father John said, blatantly ignoring the driver. "Would you like to come home with me? I have a hearth you can warm up at and food to eat, wouldn't that be nicer than sitting here in a bush?"

One of the children reached out to gingerly touch the tips of Father John's fingers. "WILL… WILL YOU HELP US?"

"Yes, if you'll let me."

Both children reluctantly crawled forward. Father John gathered them up, unwinding a cheery green scarf from around his neck to wrap the children up in before following the driver back to his buggy. "My name is Father John, what are your names?"

"I'M PAPYRUS! AND THIS IS MY BROTHER, SANS."

"hey."

"It's very nice to meet both of you."

* * *

Sans hummed absently to himself as he slid the oatcakes into the oven, then rested the butt of the spatula on the floor and leaned on the handle. He eyed the copper pots and clay bowls he had used to make the cakes as well as the breakfast they eaten earlier that day, all sitting empty and dirty around the small kitchen. He should probably clean them but, eh, that sounded like too much work. Instead he bundled them all into the copper basin of their sink, plugged up the hole, then went out to the water pump and fill a brass pitcher, which he brought back in and dumped over the dishes. There, let everything soak for a bit and they'd be a lot easier to clean when he got around to them.

Papyrus came stomping in at that point, pulling off his thick leather work gloves and neatly laying them on the table next to the door before bending down to untie his boots. "THERE! EVERYONE HAS BEEN FED, WATERED, AND GIVEN A DECORATIVE FLOWER NECKLACE. I EVEN GAVE THEM EXTRA BUCKETS OF WATER AND FEED SO THEY WON'T GO HUNGRY WHILE WE'RE OUT CELEBRATING."

"cool, i just put the oat cakes in to bake, so that just leaves the clean up before we go."

Papyrus eyed the kitchen sink, then glowered at Sans. "BROTHER, YOU HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED YET!"

"i got them all into the sink, didn't i? listen, how about you go on ahead, i know you like to help set up the bonfires. i'll stay here for the oatcakes and meet you in town."

"WILL YOU ACTUALLY CLEAN THE KITCHEN BEFORE LEAVING?"

Sans rolled his eyelights, "yes."

"ALRIGHT THEN, THANK YOU SANS!" Papyrus happily bounced out of the kitchen, the stairs creaking under him as he ascended. A short while later Papyrus was rushing down the stairs and calling out, "SEE YOU AT THE VILLAGE, SANS!" before slamming the door shut behind him.

Sans eventually got around to wiping down the counters while the oatcakes baked. Then they were finally done and cooling on the now clean counters while Sans scrubbed the dishes, humming to himself as he went. A flash of light in the window caught his attention.

Standing out at the edge of their property leaning against the fence was an all too familiar figure. A monster, a fae, one of the gentle folk of the forest, a fire elemental. Named Grillby, specifically. A bright smile spread across his face and a hand lifted in a wave when he noticed Sans staring at him. He motioned for Sans to come outside. Sans blushed and looked down as he started scrubbing again.

"_we must not look at monster men/ we must not buy their fruits…_" Sans recited with a smirk. Good Christian people who went to church every Sunday didn't dare deal with the forest folk, even if they themselves were from the forest. Still, Sans found himself glancing back up, Grillby still there and waiting for him every time. Sans quickly looked back down to his dishes and smiled each and every time.

The dishes were washed and set aside to dry, the oven fire put out, the oatcakes loaded into a basket and covered in a towel. One last glance out the window showed Grillby still waiting. Sans glanced around the house, not that he needed to, they lived alone in the last little cottage on the far outer reaches of their village, so far off the road they had a screen of trees shielding them from any passersby. No one would see if he stopped to talk to a monster before heading into town.

Besides, those warnings were for humans.

Basket hanging from his arm, Sans sauntered over to the field to Grillby. Once he got close Grillby made a "follow me" motion, then turned and ran into the forest. Sans was so surprised that he ducked between the fence boards and gave chase. Grillby looked back even as he ran, that bright smile back across his face.

I wasn't long before they were weaving between trees growing ever thicker and taller. Grillby jumped over bushes and fallen logs, Sans struggled to crash through or gingerly climb over them, too out of breath to call out to Grillby and ask what in the world he was doing. After stumbling down a rocky incline, Sans stopped to catch his breath. He reached for his boots (where had the basket gone?) and untied them, hastily kicking them off. He looked up, trying to find where Grillby had run off to. There, out of the corner of his eye, a flicker. Sans ran without hesitation, whooping in glee as he and Grillby laughed together. Sans chased him through the forest, dodging around trees and bushes and making half hearted swipes at him.

Then Grillby was running up a hill, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Sans was still following, framed beautifully by the glow of the setting sun (it can't be, he couldn't have been running for more than a quarter hour). At the top of the hill was a pile of wood waiting to ignite into a Beltane bonfire, several figures Sans ignored milling around it. Grillby slowed to a halt before the wood, turned and held his arms out to Sans even as he fell backward into the pile, fire blazing up around him. Sans didn't stop to think, simply ran and leapt into the bonfire and Grillby's arms.

By the time Grillby took him by the hand and led him out of the bonfire Sans's clothes were nothing but smears of ash on his pale bones. Sans blushed at his own nudity and tried to cover himself with his free hand. Their exit was greeted by whoops and hollers, the cheerful monsters around them all holding up mugs or horns in a toast. A red bird wearing nothing more than a shift offered Sans their mug. He hesitated, then was tugged away and off to the side by Grillby.

"… Here, come sit with me." Grillby stretched himself out on the grass at the crest of the hill, hands behind his head to pillow it against a convenient rock. Sans sat down next to him, back straight and legs crossed. Together they watched monsters dance around the Beltane bonfire, sparks floating up into the dark sky. Suddenly Sans was conscious of the fact that he was at a fae revelry, where faerie food and drink had already been offered to him in temptation. And when had it grown so late?

"… Here, you must be hungry by now." Grillby held out something to him, a delicate looking bite sized cake covered in a mound of cream and out of season berries.

"i shouldn't, that's monster food."

"… Are you not also a monster?"

Sans could only shrug, unsure how to respond to that.

Grillby made an unhappy noise and sat up, then popped the tiny cake into his mouth. Hands now free, he pulled Sans's basket out from behind the rock he'd been laying against. "… Here, your silly human food."

Sans grabbed the towel he'd laid over the oat cakes all those hours (or was it only the one?) ago, holding it over the ghostly flesh that spanned from his clavicle to his tailbone (in order to push human food through you body, you needed a body to push it through. No matter how taxing and uncomfortable). The towel felt scratchy against his ghost flesh, far scratchier than it ever had before. Sans ignored it and picked up one of his oatcakes, Grillby had been right when he assumed Sans was hungry.

The piece he tore off didn't look appetizing at all, the texture was rough and the color was bland. He popped the piece into his mouth and tried not to grimace at how chewy it was. Oatcakes were something he'd baked and eaten hundreds of times, they were always good! Why was it suddenly such a chore?

"… I don't understand how a monster managed to make human food," Grillby commented idly as he pulled out another of the light, frothy looking cakes, the berries on top seeming to glisten in the light Grillby cast.

"oh, what the hell?" Sans tossed the rest of the unappetizing oatcake over his shoulder and reached for the monster cake. It was amazing! The moment it hit his mouth it seemed to melt away into nothing, leaving an indescribable taste behind. "whoa."

"… Do you like it?"

"yeah that was… that was really good."

"… There's more, come try it." Grillby stood up, pulling Sans with him. Sans let him, dropping the scratchy towel behind him. Grillby laughed and stole a piece of cloth from another monster as they passed and draped it over Sans. It was just as light and frothy as the cake had been, smooth and soft to the touch. Sans gratefully tied it over himself as he followed Grillby to a couple of kegs, the monsters next to them eagerly handing out mugs.

The beer melted into nothing just like the cake had, leaving behind a pleasant aftertaste and a tingle running through his marrow. Sans laughed, somehow already feeling full after only that. It hadn't taken any coaxing at all for Grillby to pull him into the ring of revelers around the bonfire, singing and dancing with his fellow monsters for the first time in his life. More food and drink was offered to him, Sans happily tasted them all. The strangeness of the food disappearing in his mouth and the burst of energy that followed didn't grow old even as the night did. Sans stepped away to quietly dismiss his summoned flesh, along with the half digested human food still inside him. He suddenly couldn't stand the thought of it.

With that out of the way, the cloth he had been huddling in for half the night was tied as a loose sash that ran diagonally from should to opposite hip, doing nothing to cover any of the bones where his legs met his body. And why should he care? It's not like he had anything scandalous to hide under layers of itchy, scratchy, stiff, constricting linen and burlap. Sans went back to the bonfire to join in the revelry again. More singing, more dancing, more drinking as monsters all raised their drinks in toasts.

And then Sans was blinking his eyes open to bright morning sunshine, a pleasant ached settled into his joints. He blushed at the memory of what he'd done the night before. His head was pillowed on Grillby's shoulder, his chest rising and falling with his breaths. Breaths that seemed to tickle some part of Sans that felt new and sensitive, something like his ghost flesh but also not, something over his face. He reached a skeletal hand up and felt the side of his face where iron burns years before had left nearly invisible scars. Instead he found something soft and warm: leaves, vines, and petals. All snaking out of his blind eye to curl around his head. He looked down to find more vines and flowers (yellow asters, he noted absently. A kind of flower he'd wanted to add to their garden, Papyrus had agreed) snaking between his ribs and filling the empty space inside his chest.

Grillby stirred and opened his own eyes, the smile that was growing wonderfully familiar spreading across his face. "… Good morning."

"morning," Sans replied before stretching and yawning. When he looked back down at Grillby the other was frozen, staring up at Sans, a look of wonder on his face. "what?"

"… You bloomed."

"uh, yeah. seems so." Sans looked away and scratched his jaw in embarrassment.

"… I didn't even know you could."

"neither did i?" Sans shrugged weakly, still looking away. He felt a warm hand touch the side of his face, pulling him into a kiss that seared his teeth and sent a shot of heat right through him.

"… They're beautiful," Grillby said after ending the kiss. A finger gently caressed the petals of a flower on Sans's face.

"thanks." Sans blushed again, feeling weirdly pleased at the praise for something he had no control over. Grillby may as well have said the lights in his eye sockets were pretty (which he had the first time Sans stopped trying to stubbornly ignore him). "so uh… now what?"

"… That's your choice to make. Are you going back to that silly life where you and your brother try to pretend to be something you're not, or are you going to stay here? With me?" Grillby took Sans's hands in his own, pleading with his eyes.

"go back to that village full of burning iron and humans and their suspicious glares? nah, think i'll stick with you for a little while longer."

Grillby pulled Sans into another kiss, Sans practically crawling into his lap to press the two of them closer together.

* * *

Father John sighed to himself as he walked up the familiar path to the skeleton brothers' home. No, used to be their home, he reminded himself sadly. Rather than go through the front door, he walked around the side of the house, not even noticing the plethora of brightly colored flowers blooming in neat rows along the path. There was a farmer next to the fence marking the edge of the little pasture for the few livestock the brothers had kept, beyond the fence the forest loomed.

Father John sighed again, wondering if perhaps this little cottage had been too close. The forest was practically nipping at their toes. But it had been so perfect whey they had decided they were grown enough to live on their own, the only building so old fashioned the boys hadn't needed to worry about iron burns.

"This is all we found," the farmer said as Father John approached. "We ain't touched it neither."

There, laid neatly on top of the fence as if the owner planned to return shortly, were a pair of thick, leather work gloves. Leaning against the fence was a pitchfork, on the ground next to it was a sturdy metal pail and a pair of heavy, muddy boots.

"We found the livestock too," the farmer continued as Father John looked the abandoned tools over. "All counted fer, were fast asleep when we got here. We ain't sure fer how long, but they don't seem any bad off for all that. Jedediah thinks they was enchanted."

Which means no one in the village would want them. A small worry, they could be sold off easily enough the next town over. "Thank you. If I could have a moment, please?"

The farmer nodded and left Father John to his musings. He gently placed a hand on the fence next to the gloves. "Oh Papyrus, not you too. I had such high hopes for the both of you, proof that even the soulless heathens of the forest could be saved through the mercy of the Lord. I should have known it was not meant to be." It had been so perfect, two children practically shoved into his lap to be a shining beacon among man and monster alike. And yet not even two whole weeks after his brother fell to temptation even mild, gentle, diligent, loyal Papyrus was lured away.

He could almost picture it, Papyrus standing in the field on his way to take care of their livestock, Sans now dressed in nothing but a sheer film that did nothing to hide his shame, perhaps with hand outstretched, luring his brother into the forest. Had Papyrus resisted? Questioned? Bargained? Or had he unquestioningly followed after his brother?

What profane, pagan revelries were they now in attendance of? What barbaric, sacrilegious rites were they now performing? Father John bowed his head and sent up a prayer for the two lost souls, not that he had any faith that monsters even had souls. With one last sigh he turned and went to go see the livestock for himself. Likely the cottage and all within it would become the property of the church, after all.


End file.
